John Owen · 50 of 73

Chapter XII. Objections to the doctrine refuted. · Part 3

But the proof of what is here asserted outruns for uncouth strangeness the assertion itself, equis albis, as they say; for, saith he, “If this be so” (that is, “as you have heard above” — how, neither he nor we know), “then the same act of the will should be both physical and moral.” And, —

1. Why so? “Because physical and moral means are used for the producing of it!” — as though sundry causes of several kinds might not concur to produce one uniform effect, far enough from a necessity of receiving so much as a denomination from each of them. In the concurrence of several causes, whereof some may be free and contingent, others natural and necessary, the effect absolutely follows its next and immediate cause alone. God causes the sun to shine freely, yet is the shining of the sun a necessary effect of the sun, and not any way free or contingent. God determined the piercing of Christ’s side, and so as to the event made it necessary, but yet was the doing of it in them that did it free as to the manner of its doing, and no way necessary. But, —

2. Suppose the same act of the will should be said to be both physical and moral upon several accounts? And what if every act of the will in and about things good or bad be so, and it be utterly impossible it should be otherwise? “Yea, but then the same act should be specifically distinguished in and from itself.”

Yea, but who told you so? The terms of “physical and moral,” as related to the acts of the will, are very far from constituting different kinds or species of acts, being only several denominations of the same individual acts upon several regards and accounts. The acts of the will as they flow from that natural faculty, or are elicited thereby, are all physical, but as they relate to a law whence they are good or evil, they are moral; the one term expresseth their being, the other their regularity and conformity to some rule whereunto their agents are obliged. “Quid dignum tanto?” If by “physical and moral” Mr Goodwin intends “necessary and free,” (being the first that ever abused these words, and in that abuse of them not consistent with himself, alarming afterward the act of a minister’s preaching, as proceeding from his abilities of understanding and speaking, to be physical or natural, which yet he will not aver to be necessary, but free), he should have told us so; and then, though we would not grant that the same act may not in several respects be both necessary and free, the latter in respect of the manner of its performance and nature of its immediate cause, the former in respect of the event and the determination of its first cause, yet its consequent is so palpably false, as to the advancing of his former assertion, that it would have been directly denied, without any farther trouble.

But he adds, “It must needs be physical, because it is produced by the physical working of the Spirit of God, which, being a physical action, cannot produce a moral effect.”

Ans. By physical operation of God on and with the will, we understand only that which is really and effectually so, as different from that which is only moral and by way of motive and persuasion. Now, this we say is twofold; the first consisting in the concourse of God, as the first cause and author of all beings, to the producing of every entity, such as the acts of the wills of men are, and this in such a way as is not only consistent with the liberty of the will in all its acts and actings whatever, but also as is the foundation of all the liberty that the will hath in its actings. And in respect of this influence of God, the effect produced is only physical or natural, having such a being as is proper to it; as also it is in respect of the will itself, and its concurrence in operation. The other is that which Mr Goodwin here calls “The irresistible force or power of the Spirit,” distinguishing the efficacy of the Spirit and grace of God in their working in us to will and to do, producing those effects as they are good and gracious, in reference to their rise, end, and rule, whereunto they are related. This, then, is that which by Mr Goodwin is here asserted, “That if there be such an effectual real working of the Spirit and grace of God in us to the producing of any acts of the wills of men, they cannot be moral;” that is, they cannot have any goodness in them beyond that which is entitative. And so far are we now arrived: All efficacious working of the Spirit of God on us must be excluded, or all we do is good for nothing. Away with all promises, all prayers, yea, the whole covenant of grace; they serve for no other end but to keep us from doing good. Let us hear the Scripture speak a little in this cause: Deut. xxx. 6, “The Lord thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.” Jer. xxxi. 33, “This shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Chap. xxxii. 39, “I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them.” Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” Acts xvi. 14, “The Lord opened the heart of Lydia, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.” Phil. i. 29, “Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;” and chap. ii. 13, “It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” As also Eph. i. 18–20, “That ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him front the dead.” And, 2 Thess. i. 11, “We pray always for you, that our God would fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power.” So also in 2 Cor. v. 17, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature;” for, Eph. ii. 4, 5, “God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ,” causing us, chap. iv. 24, to “put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness;” with the like assertions, John iii. 3; James i. 18; 1 Pet. i. 23; John v. 21; 2 Cor. iii. 5, etc.

What may be thought of these and the like expressions? Do they hold out any real, effectual, internal work of the Spirit and grace of God distinct from moral persuasion, or do they not? If they do, how comes any thing so wrought in us and by us to be morally good? If they do not, we may bid farewell unto all renewing, regenerating, assisting, effectual grace of God. That God, then, by his Spirit and grace, cannot enable us to act morally and according to a rule, is not yet proved. What follows?

Saith he, “So far as exhortations are means to produce these acts, they must be moral; for moral causes are not capable of producing natural or physical effects.”

But if Mr Goodwin think that, in this controversy, “physical” and “necessary,” as applied to effects, are ἰσοδυναμοῦντα, he is heavenly wide. “Physical” denotes only their being “necessary,” a manner of being as to some of them which have physically a being. The term “natural” is ambiguous, and sometimes used in the one sense, sometimes in the other; sometimes it denotes that which is only, sometimes that which is in such a kind. By a physical effect, we understand an effect with respect to its real existency; as by a moral effect, an effect in respect of its regularity. And now, why may not a moral cause have an influence, in its own kind, to the production of a physical effect; I mean, an influence suited to its own nature and manner of operation, by the way of motive and persuasion? What would you think of him that should persuade you to lift your hand above your head to try how high you could reach, or whether your arm were not out of joint?

Secondly, It hath been sufficiently showed before, that with these exhortations, which work as appointed means, morally God exerteth an effectual power for the real production of that whereunto the exhortation tends; dealing thus with our whole souls suitably to the nature of all their faculties, as every one of them is fitted and suited to be wrought upon for the accomplishment of the end he aims at, and in the manner that he intends. Briefly, to every act of the will as an act, in genere entis, there is required a really operative and physical concurrence of the providential power of God, in its own order as the first cause; to every act as good or gracious, the operative concurrence and influence of the Spirit of grace; — which yet hinders not but that by exhortations men may be provoked and stirred up to the performance of acts as such, and to the performance of them as good and gracious.

This being not the direct controversy in hand, I do but touch upon it. Concerning that which follows, I should perhaps say we have found anguem in herba; but being so toothless and stingless as it is to any that in the least attend to it, it may be only termed the pad in the straw. “Physical and moral” are taken to be terms, it seems, equipollent to “necessary and not necessary;” which is such a wresting of the terms themselves and their known use as men shall not likely meet withal. Hence is it that acts physical and necessary are the same. Every act of the most free agent under heaven, yea, in heaven or earth, is in its own nature and being physical. Acts also are moral, that is, good or evil, consequently in order of nature to their existence (of which “necessary” or “not necessary” are the adjunct manner), in reference to the rule or law whereunto their conformity is required. How “moral” and “not necessary” come to be terms of the same import Mr Goodwin will declare perhaps hereafter, when he shall have leisure to teach as much new philosophy as he hath already done divinity. In the meantime, we deny that any influence from God on the wills of men doth make any act of them necessary as to the manner of its production. And so this first argument for the inconsistency of the use of exhortations, with the real efficiency of the grace and Spirit of God is concluded.

That which follows in this section to the end is a pretended answer to an objection of our author’s own framing, being only introduced to give farther advantage to express himself against any real efficiency of the Spirit or grace of God in the hearts or on the wills of men. Not to insist upon his darkening the discourse in hand, from his miserable confounding of those terms “physical” and “moral,” formerly discovered, I shall, as near as I can, close with his aim in it, for the more clear consideration thereof:—

First, he tells us, “That the operation of God on the will of man is, in respect of its proceeding from him, physical; but in respect of its nature and substance, it is properly moral.”

1. But first, If a man should ask Mr Goodwin what he intends by this “operation of God on the will of man,” to the end intended, I fear he would be very hard put to it to instance in any particular. It is sufficiently evident, he acknowledgeth none in this kind but what consists in the exhortations of the word.

2. Having told us before that “physical” is as much as “necessary,” and “moral” as “not necessary,” how comes it about that the same operation of God, the same act of his power, is become in several regards physical and moral, — that is, necessary and not necessary? Is Mr Goodwin reconciled to the assertion that the same thing may be said to be necessary and not necessary in sundry respects?

3. How comes the same act or operation in respect of its manner of proceeding from its agent to be physical, and in respect of its substance to be moral? or, is any act moral in respect of its substance, or is its morality an adjunct of it, in respect of the regard it hath to some rule and farther end? It is an easy thing for any to heap up such crude assertions, and in the meantime not to know what they say nor whereof they do affirm. But the reason why the acts of God intimated are moral is, “because they persuade the will only, or work persuadingly, not ravishingly or necessitatingly.” That is, in plain terms, there is no operation of the grace or Spirit of God in the working of any good in the hearts or wills of men, but only what consisteth in persuasion of them thereunto. For any real efficiency as to the communication of strength in “working in us to will and to do,” it is wholly excluded. God only persuades, men have the power in themselves, and of themselves they do it, let the Scripture say what it will to the contrary. For those terms of “ravishingly or necessitatingly,” which are opposed to this moral persuasion, whereunto the operations of God for the production of any good in us are tied up and confined, we have been now so inured to them that they do not at all startle us. When Mr Goodwin shall manifest that God cannot, by the greatness of his power, work in us to will without ravishing our wills, if we guess aright at the intendment of that expression, he will advance to a considerable success in this contest, not only against us, but God himself.

But an objection presents itself to our author, which he sees a necessity to attempt the removal of, lest an apprehension of its truth should prove prejudicial to the receiving of his dictates; and this is, “That if it be so, that God worketh on the will of man by the way of persuasion only, he doth no more than the ministers of the gospel do, who persuade men by the word to that which is good.” To this he tells you, “That it indeed follows that God and ministers work on the will of man in the same way, with the same kind of efficiency; but yet in respect of degrees, God may persuade more effectually than a minister.”

1. That all really efficient, internal, working grace of God was denied by Mr Goodwin, was before discovered; here only it is more plainly asserted: “All the workings of God on the wills of men unto good are merely by persuasion.” Persuasion, we know, gives no strength, adds no power, to him that is persuaded to any thing. It only provokes him and irritates him to put forth, exert, and exercise, the power which is in himself unto the things whereunto he is persuaded, upon the motives and grounds of persuasion proposed to him; and the whole effect produced, on that account, is in solidum to be ascribed to the really efficient cause of it, howsoever incited or stirred up. Whereas, then, men by nature are dead, blind, unbelieving, enemies to God, he only persuades them to exert the power that is in them, and thereby to live, see, believe, and be reconciled to him. And this is to exalt the free grace of God by Jesus Christ! We know full well who have gone before you in these paths, but shall heartily pray that none of the saints of God may follow after you into this contempt of the work of his grace. But, —

2. If nothing but persuasion be allowed to God in the work of men’s conversion, and in the carrying on of their obedience to the end, wherein doth the persuasion of God consist, in distinction from the persuasion used in and from the word by ministers, which it is pretended that it may excel (though it is not affirmed that it doth) by many degrees? Let it be considered, I say, in what acts of the will, or power of God, his persuasion, so distinct as above mentioned, doth consist; let us know what arguments he useth, by what means he applies them, how he conveys them to the wills of men, that are not coincident with those of the ministry. I suppose at last it will be found that there is no other operation of God in persuading men, as to the ends under consideration, but only what lies or consists in the persuading of the word by the ministers thereof, God looking on without the exerting of any efficacy whatever; which is indeed that which is aimed at, and is really exclusive of the grace of God from any hand in the conversion of sinners or preservation of believers.

3. He doth not, indeed, assert any such persuading of God, but only tells you that from what he hath spoken “it doth not fellow that God doth no more than ministers in persuading men, and that when two persuade to one and the same action, one may be more effectual in his persuading than another;” but that God is so, or how he is so, or wherein his peculiar persuasions do consist, there is not in his discourse the least intimation.

4. There is in men a different power as to persuasion, some having a faculty that way far more eminent and effectual than others, according to their skill and proficiency in oratory and persuasive arts, This only is ascribed to God, that he so excels us as one man excels another; but how that excellency of his is exerted, that is not to be understood. But there is proof tendered you of all this from 1 Cor. iii. 9, where ministers are said to “co-operate with God, which they cannot do unless it be with the same kind of efficiency,” (well said!) “and that when one works necessitatingly and another by persuasion, they cannot be said to co- operate, no more than one that runs and another that walks can be said to walk together.” Certainly our author never dreamed that any man whatever would put himself to the trouble of examining these dictates, or he would have been more wary of his asserting them, and we had not had so much, not only new and strange divinity, but new and uncouth philosophy, heaped up without any considerable endeavour of proof or confirmation.

(1.) That two agents cannot concur or co-operate to the producing of the same effect but with the same kind of efficiency is a rare notion indeed. Was he never persuaded to do any thing in his life? What thinks he of David and the Ammonites’ killing of Uriah? of a judge and an executioner slaying a malefactor? of God and Satan moving David to number the people? of God and Joseph’s brethren sending him to Egypt? But what need I mention instances? Who knows not that this so confounds all muses efficient, and that principal and instrumental, material, final, formal, which in their production of effects have all their distinct efficiency, and yet their co-operation?

(2.) The proof from the Scripture mentioned extends only to the interesting of ministers in the great honour of co-operating with God in the work of begetting and increasing faith in their own sphere, according to the work to them committed; but that God and they do work with the same kind of efficiency, it is the main intendment of the apostle in the place cited (1 Cor. iii.) to disprove. He tells you, indeed, there is a work of planting and watering committed to the ministers of the gospel; but the giving of increase (a peculiar working with a distinct kind of efficiency), that is alone to be ascribed to God. It is, I say, his design (who everywhere abundantly informs us that “faith is the gift of God, wrought in us by the exceeding greatness of his power”) to prove in this place that though the dispensation of the word of the gospel be committed unto men, yet their whole ministry will be vain and of none effect, unless, by an immediate efficacy or working of his Spirit, giving and bestowing faith on his elect, God do give an increase.

(3.) For the term of “necessitating,” put upon the real effectual work of God’s grace on the wills of men, giving them power and assistance, and working in them to will and to do, as different from that which is purely moral or persuasive only, which communicates no strength or power, I shall need no more but to reject it with the same facility wherewith it is imposed on us. The similitude of one walking and another running, wherewith [he sets forth] the inconsistency of a real efficient work of grace with persuasion, so far as that they should be said to co-operate to the producing of the same effect, doth not in the least illustrate what it is intended to set off; for though one run and another go softly (as suppose one carrying a little loaf, another a great burden of meat, for a supper), and both going to the same place, why may not they be said to co-operate to the providing of the same supper? Must all agents that co-operate to the producing of the same effect be together in one place? You may as soon bring heaven and hell together as prove it. And why must real efficiency be compared to “running,” and persuasion to “soft walking?” as though one were supposed to carry on the work faster than the other, when we only say, that in the one there is a distinct power exerted from what is in the other; which that it may be done might be proved by a thousand instances, and illustrated by as many similitudes, if any pleasure were taken to abound in causâ facili. God and man then co-operate in respect of the tendency of their working unto the event, not in respect of the kinds of their efficiency.

Of the 7th section (whereon we shall not need long to insist), which in the entrance frames an objection and pretends an answer to it, there are three parts. In the first he says that we affirm “That though the will be necessitated by God, yet it is free in its election; which, how it may be, he understands not.” But if this were all the inconvenience, that Mr Goodwin could not understand how to salve the operation of God in man with the liberty of his will, seeing as wise men as himself have herein been content to captivate their understandings to the obedience of faith, it were not much to be stumbled at; but the truth is, the chimera whose nature he professeth himself unacquainted withal is created in his own imagination, where it is easy for every man to frame such notions as neither himself nor any else can bring to a consistency with reason or truth. Of necessitating the will to election we have had occasion more than once already to treat, and shall not burden the reader with needless repetitions.

In the second division of the section, he gives you his judgment of the manner of the work of God upon the soul unto the doing of that which is good, and the effect produced thereby: whereof the one, as was said before, consists in persuasions, which he says “are thus far irresistible, that they who are to be persuaded cannot hinder but that God may persuade them or exhort them, though he prevail not with them;” — which, doubtless, is a notable exaltation of his grace. Thus Mr Goodwin works irresistibly with one or other, perhaps, every day. And “the effect of this persuasion is” (that is, when it is effectual) “that impression which it leaves upon the soul to the things whereunto it is persuaded;” as the case is in the dealing of men one with another. For my part, I see no reason why our author should so often so heedfully deliver his judgment concerning this thing, especially without the least attempt of any scriptural proof or endeavour to answer those innumerable clear and express places of Scripture which he knows are everywhere and on all occasions produced and insisted on to prove a real efficient acting of God in and with the wills of men, for the producing, working, and accomplishing, that which is good, in a way distinct from that of persuasion, which contributes no real strength to the person persuaded, concurring only metaphorically in the producing of the effect. Let this at last, then, suffice. We are abundantly convinced of his denial of the work of God’s grace in the salvation of souls.

In the third place we have a rhetorical flourish over that which he hath been laying out his strength against all this while, being a mere repetition of what hath been already tendered and given in to consideration over and over. “If God cause the saints effectually to persevere” (his terms of “irresistibly” and “necessitating” have been long since discharged from any farther attendance or service in this warfare) “by exhortations, then are all his premises of perseverance in vain.” But why so? May not God enjoin the use of means, and promise by them the attainment of the end? May he not promise that to us which he will work himself effectually in us? If God effectually work in us to give us, by what means soever, a new heart, may he not promise to give us a new heart? “Yea, but amongst men this would be incongruous, yea, ridiculous, that a father should promise his son an inheritance, and then persuade him to take heed that he may obtain it.”

But, first If this be “incongruous, yea, ridiculous,” amongst men, in their dealings with one another, doth it therefore follow that it must be so as to God’s dealings with men? “Are his thoughts as our thoughts, and his ways as our ways?” Is not the wisdom of God foolishness with men, and theirs much more so with him? Are men bound in their dealings with others to consider them not only in their natural and civil relations, but as impotent and corrupted men, as God in his dealings with them doth?

Secondly, Neither is this course so ridiculous amongst men as Mr Goodwin imagineth. That a father, having promised his son an inheritance, and instated it on him, or assured it to him, should exhort and persuade him to behave himself worthy of his kindness, and to take heed that he come to the enjoyment of the inheritance which he hath provided for him by the means that he hath appointed (for the prescription of means for the enjoyment of the inheritance must be supposed to go along with the promise and assurance), is far from being a course so ridiculous as is pretended.

Neither, thirdly, is this similitude analogous with that which it is produced to illustrate; for, — 1. A man may know how, and when, and on what account, an inheritance is settled on him by his father; but of what God promiseth we have faith only, not knowledge, properly so called; nor always the assurance of faith as to the enjoyment of the thing promised, but the adherence of faith, as to the truth and faithfulness of the promiser. Nor, — 2. Can a father work in his son that obedience which he requireth of him, as He can do who creates a new heart in us, and writes his law and fear therein. 3. This absolute engagement to bestow an inheritance, whether the means of obtaining it be used and insisted on or no, is a thing most remote from what we ascribe to the Lord in his promises of perseverance, which are only that believers shall persevere by the use of means; which means he exhorts them to use, and yet, dealing with them in a covenant of grace and mercy, entered into upon account of their utter insufficiency in themselves to do the things that are well pleasing to him, whereunto they are so exhorted, he himself effectually and graciously, according to the tenor of that covenant, works in them what he requires of them, bearing them forth in the power of his grace to the use of the means appointed.